


Red Pen

by yuletide_archivist



Category: History Boys - Bennett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-23
Updated: 2007-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:21:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom Irwin has had more of a correcting influence than Stuart Dakin realises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Pen

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Claire

 

 

Dakin remembers Irwin (because he was Irwin, then--there wasn't the familiarity of _Tom_ and _Stuart_ ) picking his essays apart, _here and here and here are your flaws_ , a red scrawl obscuring the string of words he'd once thought so brilliant, but which Irwin called _boring, dreary, predictable, trite_.

He was right, dammit, and Dakin would always go home and hunch over his typewriter and try again, again, again, locking himself in his room, biting his lip, picturing his teacher standing there, his arms folded over his chest, saying _pitiful, common, is that the best you can do?_

* * *

It was the transition from student and teacher to actual _people_ that was the hardest part. Standing in an empty classroom and daring someone to suck you off is _easy_. Sex is _easy_. But the realisation of humanity, the comprehension of fear and doubt and longing, the dingy blue dressing gown with the frayed cuffs, the dishes left in the sink-- _that's_ the hard part. 

And Dakin hadn't expected the hard part. Sex was something he didn't much think about except in the vaguest of terms--want, need, have. No strings, no obligations. Buy a girl dinner, give a man a look, get sucked off in a bathroom stall or stop off at someone's flat for _drinks_. Go home, sleep, wake, get through the day, repeat.

It's his own fault that it's all changed.

He was the one who called the studio, charmed the receptionist (her name was _Fiona_ , for god's sake, so he merely repeated words he'd said many times before, long ago) and got Irwin's ( _Tom's, you call him Tom now_ ) home telephone number. It had taken him three tries, but he'd finally called, pausing a little too long when Irwin actually _answered_ so that his old teacher had to say _Hello_ twice.

"I--hello, sir," he'd said, cringing at the way his words reverted ten years.

* * *

Dakin imagines Irwin's red pen marking over him, inside and out, _here and here and here are your flaws_ , and something about that makes him shiver.

But that's the difference between Irwin-the-teacher and Tom-the-Lover, in a nutshell. Where Irwin was quick to correct and to tear down lofty ideas of adequacy, and free with the red ink, Tom is lazy in bed on Sunday morning and surprisingly gentle when they fuck (he even calls it _making love_ , for god's sake) as if he's afraid he'll lose everything if he's too rough.

And so Stuart growls at him, and if a growl can be reassuring, this one is, for Tom grips his hips a little more tightly and thrusts a little harder, and Dakin arches his back and begs _sir, please, yes, sir_ , and he's sure something snaps in Tom just then because he gives a choked cry and begs Stuart to _say that again_ as he drives into him harder than he's ever done before in the handful of times they've done this.

And Stuart cries _please, sir, fuck me_ , remembering every fantasy he ever had about his teacher, closing his eyes and regressing to the nervous schoolboy masking his uncertainty with cockiness, leaning against a desk and blurting obscenities while his teacher's eyes widened across the room.

He arches up and thrusts back against Tom, wishing he could see his face, younger and more vulnerable without his glasses, wants to do this on his back next time so he can see what Tom looks like when he comes. He's only ever imagined it, never seen Tom's face screwed up in pure pleasure as he groans out his orgasm. He wants to see Tom let go.

Stuart fists himself, making do with imagining the face, and it's good, it's so good--those blue eyes narrowed, those thin lips rounded, a blush creeping up his cheeks--and Stuart fists himself faster faster harder harder, and god but he's _so close_.

He urges Tom on with a litany of _yesses_ and _sirs_ , wanting nothing more than to feel hot come spurting inside him--he's come a long way from wanting nothing more than to be sucked off after drinks.

Tom chokes again, and gasps, and says _yesyesyesfuck_ when he comes, pulsing, spilling himself inside Stuart, his nails digging in to Stuart's hips, and Stuart adds another _yes, please, god, sir_ as he comes himself, all over the sheets and his hand, and they both collapse, and Tom nips at Stuart's ear as he sinks down on top of him. Stuart wipes his hand on the sheet and sighs and settles.

Tom _clings_ after sex, and Stuart might think it pathetic if Tom were anyone else.

* * *

Stuart _wants_ to be a better person. He looks back on his teenage years and cringes, recalls his early twenties and sighs. He's been an utter arse much of the time, never realising it until it was too late to make amends with most of the people he's hurt, and somehow he thought that Irwin, red pen in hand, might be able to fix him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that's not Irwin's job, not anymore, but still he wishes it were that easy.

Something does happen, though, somewhere along the way, when the frayed dressing gown keeps Stuart warm as often as it does Tom, when the dishes in the sink are doubled before they are washed, when humanity's accepted and there are no traces left of their former relationship (except sometimes in bed, where they're Irwin and Dakin again and the years fall away).

What happens is that Stuart stops hating himself, discovers what Tom sees, why he likes him, why he keeps him around. And that's better than anything Irwin's red pen ever did for him, and he builds on that, learning.

And even if this doesn't last, though at the moment Stuart can't see why it won't, he sometimes thinks he might be okay with that. Because when he wasn't looking--and whether or not Tom realises it was his influence, though surely he's seen it, surely he has--Stuart's become an all right sort of guy, thanks to Tom and the red pen he's always yielded. 

 


End file.
